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Sometimes Mark makes me change the channel. The news is too
gloomy, my heart is broken again for the pain I see in the world. I stare with
silent tears running down my cheeks, he looks at me, then sighs and takes the
remote away. “Your heart cannot break for everyone,” he says, “Let’s watch
something uplifting.”
And it’s true, my heart needs hope.
In a world where darkness confronts me on every side, and where pain is raw and pulsing beyond the polished veneer, I need hope. I search for it, and I search for empathy and compassion and kindness. I almost always find it when I search. Sometimes when Mark usurps my remote, I change the channel to a documentary – something inspiring, to restore my hope in humanity. And sometimes I just read the compassionate words of fellow wanderers who are also saddened by the pain. And in solidarity, across religious lines, across the lines of geography and socioeconomic status, we stand and declare that hope is still alive.
In a world where darkness confronts me on every side, and where pain is raw and pulsing beyond the polished veneer, I need hope. I search for it, and I search for empathy and compassion and kindness. I almost always find it when I search. Sometimes when Mark usurps my remote, I change the channel to a documentary – something inspiring, to restore my hope in humanity. And sometimes I just read the compassionate words of fellow wanderers who are also saddened by the pain. And in solidarity, across religious lines, across the lines of geography and socioeconomic status, we stand and declare that hope is still alive.
"As a person of faith, I say to you: there is holiness in grief, in tears and in anger. In the refusal to be comforted, there is the understanding that these bullets have torn a rent not only in individual lives but also in the fabric of life itself, in an understanding of community as it ought to be. Such refusal proves that we have glimpsed and can imagine a better way of being together in the world. The fact that this event is one of many tragedies and episodes of suffering around the world doesn't diminish its magnitude; in many ways, it makes it sadder... And yet, this is also a world in which immense kindness and compassion can wash over us in times of greatest need. For those whose trust in humanity has been shattered today: as you remember a young man bursting into a place of supposed safety and turning it into a place of destruction, may you also remember communities, places of worship, neighborhoods and individuals bursting into this situation with love and support. May these times testify not to the power of evil to destroy community, but to the greater power drawing a community together to stand with one another. I call that greater power God; but whether or not we share the same faith, let us share that commitment to life and love that render hatred and evil ultimately powerless."
-Reverend Meghan Johnston Aelabouni -
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